


Smell

by killingeveforever



Series: Villaneve oneshots [2]
Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:22:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24248752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killingeveforever/pseuds/killingeveforever
Summary: After seeing her family, Villanelle craves familial love.
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Series: Villaneve oneshots [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1758697
Comments: 10
Kudos: 159





	Smell

**Author's Note:**

> my first killing eve fanfiction so don't be too harsh please!  
> inspired by Jodie wearing a specific perfume to play villanelle and the use of smell throughout the show so far

Less than a week ago, she smelt like power. Of a roman centurion, victorious in battle. Of royalty, of hierarchy and it was enough to make people bleed. Now she smells like defeat.

She sighs, running her hands through her thin hair, the distinct scent of soft honey shampoo long gone. Instead, her fingers become trapped inside the tangled strands and she pulls and she pulls harder. It should be painful, but she doesn’t feel a thing. Half-heartedly, she attempts to scrape it back into a bun, but when it refuses to cooperate, she surrenders and it hangs limply around her head.

It’s sickening. The dark-blonde cloud is a constant reminder of smoke. She turns her head, and the familiar stench of gasoline surrounds her again, the taste of ash stuck tightly to her hair. She shakes it, desperately trying to rid herself of the image of the house, despite having never looked back to watch it burn.

She slumps back on her chair, her eyes are glazed as they follow the moving countryside. She doesn’t hear the other passengers around her, and the lost look in her eyes, combined with her distressed state of dress is enough for them to give her a wide berth. The seats surrounding her are empty for the entire journey. 

If she was feeling herself, she’d never be seen dead like this. But she’s not, so she doesn’t notice or doesn’t care as passers-by stop to stare as she walks past them in the station. Although she’s physically on Spanish soil, her mind is still back in Russia as her body moves on autopilot back to her apartment.

She doesn’t really notice anyone or anything until she walks straight into Konstantin. He stands in her kitchen, drinking something out of a tiny glass that would normally intrigue her, but today she doesn’t care.

“You look like shit.” He tells her, his eyes, which are normally full of mirth, are instead laced with concern.

She glares at him, sitting down on a sofa which she knows costs more than all her body parts combined. “I know. What do you want?”

He takes a step backwards at her cool tone, but cannot resist the chance to wind her up further, revenge for all the times she infuriated him. “I take it you weren’t a beautiful baby?” he asks, lightly.

She rolls her eyes, refusing to look at him. Instead, she picks the fraying stitching on the sleeve of the denim dress.

“Did they tell you they were disappointed in you?” He says, and his teasing tone is enough for Villanelle to lose any control she had previously clung to. 

“Shut up.” She screams at him, turning away from him like a defiant toddler, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing her pain.

“I’m sorry.” He says, swallowing a mouthful of what she guesses is water (surely it’s too early for vodka?) as he speaks. “I’m sorry.” He holds his hands up in apology.

She doesn’t move, continues staring out of the window.

“Villanelle?”

She continues to stare, watching as a pair of birds fly through the sky together, feathers a whisper away from each other as they move in the warm breeze.

“Villanelle? I’m sorry okay? I’m sorry.” He sighs, taking a seat next to her.

She turns to him, but her eyelids are heavy from her lack of sleep over the previous forty-eight hours and she doesn’t have the energy for a response. She sighs, rubbing her face which feels dry to touch. “What do you want Konstantin?”

“Dasha put a pitchfork through Eve’s husband.”

“Oh.” She says, barely registering the news.

“I thought you should know.” He continues.

If it was any other day she’d ask him how, and why. But today she doesn’t care. Eve for once is the furthest thought she has ever been in her mind. Instead, all she knows is that she doesn’t want to be alone.

“Stay for a movie?” she asks, hating the way her voice sounds so soft, so weak. 

His gaze shifts towards the expensive, flat-screened television in front of them. She knows his answer before he even opens his mouth to speak.

“I can’t, I’m sorry.”

She doesn’t say anything else to him. He stays for a few minutes, walking aimlessly around her apartment as she gazes into thin air, unmoving. A staring contest with the world around her, and by taking one look at her, he can see that she’s losing. His eyes travel from the lavish detailing of the walls to the fraying cuffs of her denim sleeves and he sighs.

“Have a shower Villanelle, get changed. Do whatever it is you do for fun. Dasha won’t want to see you like this.” He says as he clicks the door shut.

She sits in silence for a while. Her concept of time is a little shaky after the last few days, she could have been sitting there hours, or minutes. Either way, it’s approaching dusk now, the city is tinged with a golden glow that she wishes she was part of, but she’s an outsider, merely looking in. Her stomach growls and as she swallows she notices how much she needs a drink. Stumbling to the kitchen, she grabs a glass of water and gulps it down too quickly, not bothering to wipe away the excess as it drips down her chin.

She enters the bathroom, but she barely looks at herself, despite the mirror covering one-third of the space. From Konstantin’s remarks and her own fingernails, she knows that she needs a shower. But as she looks to the expensive lotions and oils and loafers and sweet-smelling soaps she knows that she can’t face it. For a moment, she contemplates having a bath, but as she unscrews the top of the bubble bath, the flowery scent overwhelms her, so she doesn’t, screwing the lid tightly shut. Her eyes drift to her shelves filled with perfumes, but only one sticks out.

La Villanelle.

Though it is the scent she gave to Eve, she no longer wears it herself, only now buying it for the name and the pretty jar on the cabinet. She sprays the scent everywhere, on her wrists, on her neck, and continues spraying until the bottle is empty and the room is thick with the taste of it. Coughing and with her eyes watering, she comes to her senses and hastily opens the window. The fresh, cool air that enters washes over her, and she basks in it, making up her mind that she cannot stay any longer.

Along with the taste of smoke, in the Eurostar, she now is consumed with the smell of the perfume. It’s unusual, like being transported back into the past. A reminder of the first few months out of prison, when all that Oksana was became covered in Villanelle. It’s a strong scent, overpoweringly feminine and unapologetic, and many of the things that Villanelle is that Oksana maybe isn’t. As the train enters St Pancras International, she notices that again, nobody has moved to sit anywhere near her, even though the next carriage is crowded.

She walks out of the station with no clear idea of where she is going, but her feet (and the tube) move in one clear direction. Eve’s apartment is in front of her before she even registers she is in England. Despite herself, and everything that has gone on in the past few days, she smiles, wondering whether the older woman appreciated her present or the cake she’d sent to her office in what seemed like a lifetime ago.

She knocks on the door.

Eve opens it.

She takes a step backwards in surprise at her guest’s appearance. She looks tired, Villanelle notices, and though it could be because it’s gone eleven, and Eve needs a good night’s sleep, she imagines it is probably from the trauma of her last few days too.

“Villanelle.”

Although Eve certainly doesn’t appear too surprised to see her, her greeting is frosty. As Villanelle looks up at her, Eve wordlessly steps aside in response, allowing her to enter the apartment.

It’s only when she’s stood in the dingy kitchen area that Villanelle remembers the last time that she saw Eve. Her heart twists at the memory. 

“Look I know you want to talk about the bus and the kiss and the twelve and Rome and my husband and the fact that I’m still alive and that I listen to that goddam recording all the time but can we not do that tonight?” Eve asks her, in her typical word-vomit fashion.

She blinks at her for a moment and nods in response as she sits down on Eve’s sofa. It’s not comfortable, in fact, she’s pretty sure that it is very uncomfortable, and that sitting on the cold floor would provide her muscles with more comfort but she sits. It smells like Eve, well the jumper on the back of the chair smells like her washing powder, and that’s enough for now.

“Villanelle? Is everything okay?” she asks, after a moment of watching her. “You’re a lot quieter than I remember.”

Villanelle sits in silence a little longer, trying to ground herself with Eve’s familiar things as she prepares to speak. It doesn’t work, so she grabs Eve’s jumper and inhales deeply.  
Eve picks it up out of her hands hurriedly, and Villanelle’s face falls as her comfort is removed. “Don’t smell that, it needs washing.” She says, as a way of an explanation.

“So do I.” Villanelle replies and Eve’s eyes widen at the tone of her voice, the Russian influence to her accent stronger than she had heard from her before. She takes a moment to truly look at her.  
Villanelle looks smaller. Her dress is long and dirty and the sleeves are frayed at the edges as if the stitching has been picked at, over and over. Her hair is down, and the normally blonde, straight immaculate strands are darker, and slightly out of place as they fall loosely around her face. Her smooth skin looks tired and grey under the dim lighting of her living space, and her catlike eyes are without their usual sparkle of mischief. The smell of her perfume reaches Eve’s nostrils and once she can smell it, she can smell nothing else. She recognises the scent at once.

“Uhh well- the bathroom is over there.” She says, pointing in the direction of the small room, which she would normally be ashamed of Villanelle seeing, but now she is too tired to care.

Villanelle gets up shakily and towards the room, but stops in her tracks. “Eve?” she asks.

“Yes?” Her response is one of exhaustion and defeat, and Villanelle immediately knows that Eve will agree to anything if it gets her out of her apartment sooner. It’s not ideal, but Villanelle has worked with worse.

“Do you want to help me?” She asks, trying her upmost to summon a flirtatious tone, but it falls flat to both of their ears. 

Still, Eve is not taking any chances. “Villanelle, stop. I’m not in the mood.”

Her face falls and Eve immediately feels a pang of guilt.

“I know. Please?” she asks.

Eve smiles sympathetically at the Russian, already relenting.

“Fine, I’ll help you. Just no funny business, okay? I don’t want to deal with you being a dick right now.”

Villanelle nods her head quickly, her features softening. “Thank you.”

Once inside the bathroom, Eve turns on the tap, and warm water trickles into the bath. The room is small, too small for them both to move around without being basically on top of each other, but they manage. Personal space was never an issue between the two of them anyway. She pours in a generous amount of bubble bath and the room fills with a sweet, floral scent.

Villanelle just sits on the toilet seat, in a world of her own.

“Alright, clothes off then,” Eve says, waiting for a flirtatious comment that Villanelle would never normally resist.

She just nods, stripping silently and Eve is taken aback. She hands Eve her denim dress, one that Eve would never imagine she would see her wearing. Noticing the care that Villanelle took in taking it off, at least in comparison to the rest of her clothes, which lay scattered on the floor, Eve places it carefully on the closed toilet seat.  
Eve glances briefly at Villanelle, before turning around and letting her sit in the bath. If Villanelle had caught her, she would have used the excuse of checking for any injuries, but she found none, nothing other than smooth, beautiful skin. She blushes, busies herself with finding a spare towel, and toiletries suitable for the Russian girl.

“Eve?” She asks, lying back under the bubbles.

“Yeah?” she replies, instantly looking at her. This version of Villanelle was one that she hadn’t seen before. She was younger, almost. More vulnerable. Despite everything that had gone on between them, and all the unresolved tension and anger, she couldn’t help but want to care for her.

“Will you wash my hair please?” she pleads.

“Sure,” Eve finds herself saying. “Sure.”

Villanelle shifts slightly, moving so that her back faces Eve and her hair is easily in reach. Without the presence of the perfume that Eve had grown to know so well, her hair smelt like smoke. She reaches for the shampoo bottle, squirting a small amount onto the palm of her hand.

“Have you come from a barbecue or something?” she asks as she massages the liquid into Villanelle’s wet hair gently. It’s a gesture so intimate and caring that it has her close her eyes, hoping that Eve wouldn’t notice the tears threatening to spill.

“Something like that.”

“Yeah?” Eve hums distractedly, marvelling at how different Villanelle’s hair felt to her own, the tangled strands still somehow smoother, despite the fact that they had clearly not seen a hairbrush in a while.

“I saw my family.” She says, out of the blue as she rinses out the shampoo.

“I thought they were dead?” Eve questions.

“So did I, until Rome.” Villanelle replies darkly, and Eve knows not to push her any further.

She reaches for the conditioner now, taking a generous amount this time. She isn’t rushing, instead takes the time to carefully ease out the many knots in Villanelle’s hair, taking extra care not to treat her hair as violently as she would her own. The tips of her fingers prod gently at her scalp, giving her a little head massage as she works, wordlessly providing Villanelle with an intimate comfort, which is both warm and overwhelming.

When this proves too much, she moves away from Eve as her tears fall. She slips under the water, under the pretence of washing the conditioner out, but as she resurfaces she knows that eve noticed.

“Villanelle?” she questions gently, as she helps her out of the bath, and wraps her softest (which isn’t awfully soft but it is the best that she can do) towel around her. “What happened?”

Villanelle sniffs, hard. She stares back at Eve, not quite believing that she is crying.

Eve sighs, taking the towel and replacing it with a dressing gown, one that usually dwarfs her and manages to make Villanelle look even smaller. Her wet hair drips on the floor beside them, so Eve guides her gently towards her bedroom, and she pulls out the hairdryer.

They’re both silent, as Eve methodically dries her hair. Eve focuses hard on the task, one hand gently separating the strands before they tangled in the warm air. She can’t quite bring herself to look at the younger woman’s face, a strange feeling stirs in the bottom of her heart at seeing her so vulnerable, so entirely not herself. 

Villanelle, meanwhile is sat completely still, her hands under her legs to hide their trembling. She’s grateful for Eve’s quiet comfort as she tries desperately to piece herself together. Her reflection in the mirror isn’t one she immediately recognises, her body is small, soft and her cheeks are tinged a rosy pink. Whether it’s from the warmth of the hairdryer, or her tears, she doesn’t want to know. 

When it’s dry, they can’t hide under the noise any longer, but at least Villanelle had stopped crying.

“My mother. She is like me.” She says, only finding the words to speak in short sentences, leaving Eve to fill in the gaps.

Eve nods, taking her hand awkwardly as if to try and give some form of physical comfort. Villanelle twists her palm around, distractedly interlocking their fingers in different ways as she speaks. 

“She didn’t want me. Not then, not now. She said I’m not part of her family.”

The words hang heavy in the air for a moment.

“She’s dead now. Along with her husband, my half-brother, and his girlfriend.”

Eve nodded, the smell of smoke making more sense.

“She was mean. Mean to me, mean to my brother. My other half-brother, she was mean to him too.”

“Yeah?” Eve questions. “What happened to them?”

“They’re alive. Probably singing to Elton John somewhere.” She says, and Eve, despite being puzzled, pushes it to one side, families are weird, and sometimes that it is not worth questioning.

“How are you, Villanelle?” Eve asks.

“I don’t feel like Villanelle.” She responds quietly.

Eve nods, immediately understanding the armour of perfume and its awkward combination with her dress.

“Oksana, then?” Eve tries tentatively, stroking her hair in an attempt to calm her down, having noticed her reaction to the older woman touching her hair in the bath. It’s almost motherly, the way she has cared for her this evening, something that Eve realises the younger woman needed. 

“I do feel things.” She says, almost stubbornly.

“I know you do. I shouldn’t have said otherwise. How do you feel now?”

“Alone. The one person who was supposed to care, betrayed me like everyone else.” She replies almost mechanically, her voice carefully devoid of emotion, expect for the small crack between her sentences.

Eve sighs. “Was the dress hers?” She asks, realising its significance.

“Yeah. She tailored it for my size.”

Eve understands immediately. Hates the woman for making someone cling to a fabric in the place of love.

They sit together in silence before Villanelle clears her throat, pointedly. Eve jumps, and blushes, startled.

Villanelle rolls her eyes. “I can feel you analysing me.” A teasing tone back in her voice.

Eve laughs, feeling the sarcastic assassin becoming more and more like herself. “I wasn’t.” she defends herself, and Villanelle looks at her, unimpressed. The dressing gown no longer looks too big for her, now that her personality is back.

“Okay, I was a little bit.” She admits, and Villanelle just laughs.

They simultaneously lay back on her bed for a while, both lost in separate but similar thoughts. Eve turns to her, propping herself on her side to face the younger woman. The clock behind her read three minutes to three am, and God she was tired but that didn’t matter. “Want to stay and watch a movie?” she asks her.

“Only if it has a happy ending.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading :)


End file.
